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Latin American art finds first Toronto home in Sur Gallery

With the opening Saturday of the Sur Gallery, Latin American artists finally have a Toronto space to call home.

“It’s the most multicultural, diverse city in the world and there is no place really that is dedicated to Latin American art,” said the gallery’s curator, Tamara Toledo. “It’s empowering to have our own community take ownership of that.”

Artist: Marcos Ramirez Erre
Piece: Crossroads
Mexico-based Erre’s Crossroads piece may look like a playful sign pointing to distant cities. But look closer to see the theme.
On one post the distance to Havana, on another a Barack Obama quote: “You can’t have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy.”
“Big brother is watching you,” reads another. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star)

Artist: Marcos Ramirez Erre
Piece: Eye Charts
Erre selected three prints from the pool of 30 “eye chart” works he has made since creating the piece in 2003 to display at Sur Gallery. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star)

Artist: Juan Ortiz-Apuy
Piece: The Freedom Fighter Manual
In a back room in the gallery, Ortiz-Apuy mounted silkscreened images, printed in glow-in-the-dark ink, of each page from The Freedom Fighter’s Manual, a CIA-produced propaganda booklet dropped from airplanes to the people of Nicaragua in 1983. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star)

The gala show, Sportsmanship Under Surveillance, was born from her prevailing interest in social, political and economic issues.

“I thought about the theme of surveillance and the context of what we’re going through in Canada and how that surveillance will probably increase during the Pan Am Games, which not only will be evident but necessary,” she said.

Growing up under a dictatorship in Chile, Toledo knows first-hand what it is like to live under intense surveillance.

“I wanted to play with that theme and consider all the things that are happening in Canada, with Bill C-51 and Bill C-24 and how that’s affecting citizens.”

Beyond simply introducing a general audience to works by Latin American artists, she hopes the gallery helps artists develop a market for their work locally.

“There are so many artists out there that we are unaware of as Canadians because we are still a very Eurocentric, westernized audience.”

Originally developed for the 2003 for the Venice Biennale art exhibition, Castro updated the piece for a Toronto audience.

The work is a printed guide offering tips for modern protest and demonstration for visitors to take home (10,000 copies were printed for the show) or find online.

“I’m obsessed with the idea that younger people need to be conditioned to go into the street. It is the only way now, sometimes, to force politicians to be more open and interested in the public,” Castro told the Star.

“If you don’t demonstrate that you agree or you disagree, they make what they desire.”

The guide includes information for protesters in Havana, Dakar, Istanbul, Toronto, and other cities around the world. A fact box for “How to avoid getting shot by a police officer” graces the U.S. section. In the Paris section, the guide offers directions and transportation options to the site of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference.

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